The SIPRI Update for January 2013 is out now — read it online, or subscribe to receive the SIPRI Update in your inbox each month.
The latest SIPRI Essay by SIPRI Researcher Xenia Avezov discusses the Brazilian-proposed concept of ‘responsibility while protecting’ (RWP). It argues that RWP has polarized opinion on how the international community should respond when civilian populations are targeted.
Supporters claim it would make civilian protection interventions, especially military ones, more accountable and proportionate and rein in perceived misuse of the internationally accepted ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P). Some of RWP’s opponents see it as a deliberate ploy by states aligned with China and Russia to impede intervention. In reality, this debate is a distraction from less comfortable truths about R2P.